National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1443-0568
No. 19
January 1996


Contents

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'Multimedia Preservation: Capturing the Rainbow'

The National Preservation Office hosted its second national conference, 'Multimedia Preservation: Capturing the Rainbow', at the Brisbane Hilton Hotel on 28-30 November 1995. The conference, which was attended by over 180 delegates, brought together leading Australian and international cultural heritage and information technology professionals, policy makers and business leaders to address the critical issues surrounding multimedia preservation. These issues included such matters as the feasibility of digitising the collections of libraries and archives and problems associated with the incompatibility and longevity of hardware and software for interactive multimedia products.

[NPO Conference Delegates]

Left to right: Normah Chik Bt. Ahmad Nordin, Department of Broadcasting, Malaysia; Jan Lyall, Director, National Preservation Office; Margaret Kan, Kodak Australia and Ronda Jamieson, Preservation Manager, LISWA.




Keynote speakers included: Steven Schwalger, Executive Officer of the Australasian Interactive Multimedia Association, who spoke on developments in electronic publishing; Nancy Elkington from the US-based Research Libraries Group, who surveyed international trends in digitisation projects and who outlined recent attempts in the United States to achieve national coordination of policy and practice with regard to the preservation of digital information; Boyd Rayward of the University of New South Wales, who predicted a blurring of institutional distinctions between libraries, archives and museums in the digital future; Michael Lesk, Executive Director of Computer Science Research for the American company Bellcore; and Michael Alexander, Head of Document and Image Processing at the British Library. The conference also included a session on the legalities of multimedia preservation in which two lawyers, Jamie Wodetzki of the Australian Council of Library and Information Services and Michael Paterson of solicitors Picton Warlow and Company, explored copyright and other legal implications of digital preservation, access and multimedia contracting.

The conference was preceded by a workshop 'Towards the Digital Collection', which was limited to 40 participants. The workshop was led by Alan Howell, Manager of Preservation at the State Library of New South Wales and chairperson of the NPO Advisory Body, who took the opportunity to share the knowledge he gained at a five-day digitisation workshop held at Cornell University in September 1995. The workshop featured practical demonstrations of document preparation and digital scanning procedures and explored various preservation management issues relating to electronic media. The conference proceedings will be published in mid-1996. Tape recordings of conference sessions are also available for purchase from the National Preservation Office (tel.: (02) 6262 1137; E-mail: npo@nla.gov.au).

Following the conference, the NPO hosted a National Workshop on Preservation of Digital Objects in Canberra on 6 December. The workshop brought together 35 invited representatives from key stakeholder organisations with an interest in the preservation of information stored in digital form. Workshop delegates discussed and revised a draft statement of principles on access to and preservation of digital objects and agreed to participate in a nationally coordinated program for the development and implementation of agreed strategies for the preservation of digital objects. The overall aim of this process is to achieve a co-ordinated cross-sectoral approach to the preservation of digital information. The December workshop represented an important first stage in this process through the develop-ment of a set of commonly agreed principles which will underpin future programs and strategies.

TDK Audio Book Award 1995

[TDK '96 winners]

The 1995 TDK Australian Audio Book Award was won by Louis Braille Books for the fourth year in succession. Their winning production of the year was Dark Places by Kate Grenville, narrated by James Condon, a title which also won the category prize for unabridged fiction. Louis Braille Books' production of Goodbye Girlie by Patsy Adam-Smith, narrated by Beverley Dunn, received the award for the unabridged non-fiction category. ABC Enterprises was the other big winner, taking out the award for abridged fiction with the children's audio book Beastie Stories, charmingly narrated by Mark Mitchell. A dramatised production of Mary Durack's family biography,Kings in Grass Castles, received the award for abridged non-fiction.



RIGHT: TDK Award winners: Karl Hughes, Robert De Grauuw, Pamela Morrow, Kate Grenville, Rose Blustein, narrator James Condon.


These prize winners represent a change which has taken place in the audio book industry since the Australian Audio Book Award was first made in 1989. When established, the aim of the award was to improve the quality of audio books produced by non-commercial organisations for people with impaired vision and other print handicaps, and those with intellectual disabilities. Since 1994 the aim has been to improve the quality of audio books produced by both commercial and non-commercial producers by recognising the endeavours of producers and narrators. A further aim of the award is to promote awareness of audio books in the community generally and to make them available for unrestricted borrowing and purchasing. When this latter aim is achieved there will be more unabridged Australian literature available in audio format which will be greatly welcomed by many audio book enthusiasts.

Although most unabridged audio books are still produced under restrictions in Australia, there are some signs of change. It will be possible, for instance, for all of this year's winning audio books to be available from public libraries. There are, of course, no restrictions on the audio books produced by ABC Enterprises which are available through both bookstores and libraries. The productions by Louis Braille books, while not sold to bookstores, are commercially available to tax exempt organisations such as public libraries and educational institutions. A colourful poster announcing the 1995 winners is being distributed to public libraries and bookstores. It is anticipated that this will alert people to these productions and may prompt requests for them.

Through the audio book many people are rediscovering the joy of listening to stories. While many audio book listeners also read conventional books, for others, books in this format have been an introduction to the pleasures to be derived from literature.

TDK (Australia) Pty Ltd has generously agreed to sponsor the TDK Australian Audio Book Award for a further three years thereby helping to stimulate the development and growth of the industry.

Another prize announced on 14 November was the Trish Trinick Prize for the best-selling audio book produced in Australia or overseas. Reed for Kids was the winner of this prize with their production of The Lion King by Walt Disney.

IT and Libraries in Singapore

[Eric Wainwright]
by Eric Wainwright, Deputy Director-General, National Library of Australia

My visit to Singapore was the result of an invitation to deliver an address to a conference on 'Electronic Commerce on the Internet', held from 20-24 November 1995.

At the conference, I spoke on the topic of 'Government and the Internet: Future Directions for Use and Infrastructure Support', drawing some comparisons between the Australian and Singapore situations. Internet use in Singapore is still well below Australian levels, and certainly the commercial sector use is no more advanced than in Australia. Nevertheless, there is clearly a good deal of interest, and many new initiatives are getting off the ground.

Informal discussions at the conference with representatives of Singapore Telecom and AT & T confirmed press reports that both organisations expect to be involved in providing Internet links between Australia and South-East Asia early in 1996. This is important in introducing real competition into Australia's international Internet connections, which are still very expensive.

While in Singapore I also took the opportunity to chart other developments of interest to the National Library of Australia. These included:

National Library of Singapore

I made a detailed presentation to senior staff at the National Library of Singapore on the WORLD 1 development, and generally related developments in online library services in Australia.

The National Library of Singapore was restructured in August 1995, as a result of the 1994 Library 2000 Review Report, as a more independent body analogous to an Australian statutory authority. A new Chief Executive, Dr Chris Chia, has been appointed. He has a background with the National Computer Board, and more recently, in the private sector multi-media industry. He has also bought in some new senior staff with National Computer Board experience. The NCB not only sets strategy and planning for all IT developments in the Singapore Government, and to some extent the country as a whole, but also has staff stationed in each government department/agency, including NLS, carrying out the implementation of IT at the agency level.

Although there has been a decision that the National Library should be relocated to a new building in the city, the functions of that building are being reconsidered as a result of the Library 2000 Review, and consideration of a distributed national collection approach which is likely to include some other libraries, such as university law, medical and possibly other subject specialist libraries, being designated to have quasi-national functions together with the National Library. The new library is expected also to have a major new role as a central business library service for Singapore city, although it is also possible that this will be established in a separate building.

There was general agreement that SILAS (Singapore's equivalent of ABN, based on the same original WLN software, which, however, has not been further developed as much as ABN) is near the end of its life. Dr Chia is now reviewing the Library's preferred systems development directions with assistance from the National Computer Board. The National Computer Board has recently issued an RFI in relation to a pilot system to link the database and document supply functions of about 20 libraries of different types, and this is seen as one possible path for future national development, with the existing SILAS databases and functions falling into a new distributed system.

National Computer Board

The NCB, with a staff of more than 1100, is the overall information services and technology planner for the Singapore Government, and the body instrumental in setting Singapore's 'Vision of an Intelligent Island' IT 2000 Strategy in 1992. Since then, Singapore development of IT as a means for the advancement of its whole society has gone ahead fast, and it may well be the first country in the world to provide full broadband electronic services to all of its citizens via homes, offices and public access points (the NCB has a very active presence on the World Wide Web, and detailed information about its activities can be found there at http://www.ncb.gov.sg).

The Board has recently been through a major restructuring, and now has applications 'clusters' reporting directly to the Chief Executive. Clusters are being seeded with $S200 000 000 development funds, and it is expected that this will assist in further developing NCB/industry partnerships in the priority application areas under the IT 2000 plan.

The NCB will continue to have its 'Government Chief Information Officer' role in directing overall public service IT strategy, plans, policies and standards, and an NCB officer will continue to fill the 'Chief Information Officer' role in each government ministry.

Digital library developments are seen as a priority area within the IT 2000 objectives, and the NCB organised Singapore's first Digital Libraries Conference and Multimedia Workshop in 1995. Through ITI, the Digital Libraries Cluster is bringing forward a range of software which is described at: http://www.iti.gov.sg.

Institute of Systems Science

The Institute of Systems Science (ISS) is a national research laboratory funded by the National Science and Technology Board and housed at the University of Singapore, '... dedicated to the development of next generation technologies which can play a pivotal and catalytic role in Singapore's future economic positioning'. My visit was primarily because the National Library of Australia is a major customer for the Institute's MASS (Multilingual Application Support Service) software, which provides a range of Asian script handling capabilities, for our national Chinese, Japanese and Korean service.

ISS appears to be a well- supported institute of the University, with a large building and over 200 staff. It has a wide programme of research and development covering multi-language processing, multi-media systems, multi-media networking, archiving and retrieval of multi-media information, pattern recognition and intelligence systems and information-enhanced medicine.

ISS is continuing to develop MASS software as part of its multi-language processing capabilities, an area which is expected to receive ongoing support and in which ISS is regarded as a world leader. Commercialisation strategy is currently under investigation. Apart from the National Library of Australia, MASS is being used by a number of large companies including Xerox, AMEX, Westinghouse and several banks.

The multi-language processing programme also offers a range of machine translation and text categorisation facilities for searching information. Other developments of interest to the library include text to speech synthesis, handwriting recognition, virtual reality software, a multi-language free text search engine and various interactive multi-media capabilities.

My visit was a useful opport-unity to make contacts with three organisations in Singapore whose development efforts are likely to be of interest to us.

While the National Library of Australia is involved in major developments relating to WORLD 1 and its information server, it will be useful to maintain ongoing contacts with Singapore, with a view to possible collaboration and sharing of effort in the future.

WORLD 1 Presentation Dates

Anyone who is interested is attending the following presentations to explain WORLD 1 is welcome. Please RSVP to WORLD 1 Marketing at least one week before the date, on fax: (02) 6273 1180; toll free 1800 026 155 or E-mail: market@nla.gov.au.

29 January   Melbourne    World Congress Centre, La   2.00 pm               
                          Trobe Theatre                                     
7 February   Canberra     National Library of         2.00 pm               
                          Australia, Theatre                                
8 February   Sydney       Powerhouse Museum, Coles    2.00 pm               
                          Theatre                                           
13 February  Adelaide     Adelaide Convention         2.00 pm               
                          Centre, Meeting rooms 10 & 11                                                
14 February  Perth        Sebel of Perth, Arabella    2.00 pm               
                          Room                                              
16 February  Hobart       Hotel Grand Chancellor      2.00 pm               
                          (formerly the Sheraton),                          
                          Ballroom South                                    
19 February  Townsville   Travelodge, Board Room      9.30 am               
21 February  Darwin       Beaufort Hotel, Ballroom 1  9.30 am               
23 February  Brisbane     Convention Centre, Plaza    2.00 pm               
                          Level, Room P3                                    

Top End Acquisitions

[Michael Proud]

In its strategic plan, the National Library of Australia announced, as a key priority, activities which result in the library collecting and preserving Australian documentary materials of national significance. One area of focus is the library's services and collections relating to Australia's indigenous peoples. Staff members have been involved in a range of policy and collection development initiatives to develop the library's services and collections in this area. John Thompson, Director, Collection Research, Documentation and Promotion, has prepared a paper1 on sources for Aboriginal studies in the National Library which will form the basis of a guide to resources in the national collection. He and other representatives from the library have attended conferences and undertaken fact-finding missions to explore the documentation of indigenous cultures in Australia and overseas. Complementary collection development activities have lead to the recent acquisition of materials such as the papers of Edward Mabo.

Acquisition of published materials to augment the NLA's collections of printed Australiana has been boosted through increased liaison activity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative organisations.

In September, Michael Proud (above right) of the Australian Collection Development Unit, visited Darwin and Alice Springs to improve the library' s contact with organisations in the Northern Territory and to attend the Annual Conference of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library Resource Network.

Care was taken to ensure the visit included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative organisations across a range of sectors such as:

Of the 22 visits made in five days, eight resulted in first time contact and supply of publications to the library.

Inspection of the library's holdings of publications identified during the visits has revealed some gaps and follow-up acquisition action is being taken where necessary.

An overall increase in regional language publishing was a trend in the organisations visited. One area of particular interest is the publishing activity of the literature production centres. Located in communities throughout the Territory, the centres employ Aboriginal storytellers, writers and illustrators who collect and prepare curriculum materials based on indigenous culture. The legends documented in these publications are unlikely to be recorded elsewhere and, in some cases, the languages in which they are recorded may not be widely spoken.

ATSILRN Conference, Batchelor NT

The Annual Conference of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library Resource Network was held in the township of Batchelor, about 100 kilometres south of Darwin. Originally built to house workers from the Rum Jungle uranium mine, the township now provides accommodation for Batchelor College, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary institution.

Delegates at the conference represented a range of Australian organisations such as archives, libraries, and government departments.

The predominant preoccupation of the papers presented was with strategies to improve access to materials in libraries, archives and government organisations for indigenous peoples. Papers were presented on the development of national protocols for libraries, archives and information services including an additional protocol on Copying and Repatriation of Records to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. Progress on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander thesaurus was reported and the draft ALIA Policy Statement on Library and Information Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples was presented for endorsement.

The ATSILRN Conference was conducted in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere characteristic of the Northern Territory. As the majority of delegates were from the Territory and Queensland, most seemed to know one another and to mix freely.

Michael Proud's liaison visits following the conference provided further opportunities to make contact with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative organisations and to promote the National Library's role in collecting and preserving their published materials.

The success of the visits was due to the generous assistance provided by a number of people; in particular, Yvonne Forrest, Librarian of the Northern Land Council, whose knowledge of publishing in the Northern Australia proved to be invaluable when establishing contacts.

White Australia Has a Black History: Sources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in the National Library of Australia. Written and presented by John Thompson at the Indigenous Research Ethics Conference, 27-29 September 1995, organised by the Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Participation, Research and Development, James Cook University of North Queensland.

Research Grants for NLA

The Library, in collaboration with a number of other institutions, has been successful in securing funding for three projects under the Commonwealth's Research Infrastructure (Equipment and Facilities) Program which is administered by the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee. The Library will also be involved in a fourth project, through the provision of assistance with access to materials.

The projects are:

Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project, 1840-45: This project involves the digital conversion of Australian serials and fiction from the period 1840 to 1845. The participants are the University of Sydney Library, the State Library of New South Wales, Monash University Library and the National Library. A grant of $A300 000 has been approved.

'South Asia: Renovating the National Collection' Project: This project will survey library holdings on South Asia held in Australia, with specific reference to the National Library, State libraries and university libraries, and will commence the revamping of South Asian holdings in Australia through an acquisitions and access program. The project participants are Curtin University of Technology, La Trobe University, Monash University, Flinders University, the National Centre for South Asian Studies, the University of New England, the University of Sydney and the National Library. A grant of $A200 000 was approved.

National Networked Facility for Research in Australian Music Project: Utilising World Wide Web technology, this project will establish a national networked research facility to support major research initiatives in Australian music. It will document largely inaccessible primary sources and publish research outcomes electronically in a range of integrated media. The project participants are the Australian National University, Monash University, La Trobe University, the Australian Music Centre, the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Library. A grant of $A265 000 has been approved.

Italian-Australian Records Project: A Preservation, Retrieval and Access System (IARP): This will provide a comprehensive shared collection of documents and other material relating to Italian immigration, settlement and integration in Australia, by the establishment of a system for digitisation and microfilm preservation and the development and implementation of an efficient method of retrieval and access. The project participants are Victoria University of Technology, Curtin University, James Cook University, La Trobe University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney and the University of Wollongong. The National Library will be providing assistance, advice and access to materials. A grant of $A150 000 has been approved.

Music Reference Group Established

In early 1995, the DNC Office decided to establish a small Music Reference Group to facilitate change in Australia's music collections. This replaced an earlier plan to hold a roundtable meeting on music with the intention of evolving a more dynamic and forward-looking process, and through the use of the Internet, to ensure that any process of change and development would be open to participation by all.

The group had its first meeting at the National Library on 12 December. The URL for the papers for the meeting is at http://www.nla.gov.au/archive/dnc/music/ag1295.html [link no longer active] and the minutes from the meeting are at http://www.nla.gov.au/archive/dnc/music/121295.html [link no longer active]. A full report on the meeting will be included the next edition of Gateways.

Sound Preservation and Technical Services/Oral History Database

Documenting the NLA's oral history holdings.

How many terabytes of digital storage are needed to archive all the unique, original tapes in the Oral History collection? How many of the tapes urgently require preservation attention? How many are not catalogued? What formats are the recordings on? On which tapes are access and copyright conditions unclear (or at least, less clear than normal)? Just how many original tapes are there?

The gradual change in the Oral History collection-from adjunct to the Manuscript collection, with only a few hundred recordings, to a major holding of Australian oral history and folklore material-has meant that these important pieces of collection management information remained obscure. However, as the collection grew, and the planning for digital preservation and storage forged ahead, it became vital to find all this out. It was recognised that digital copying was going to be a big job, but just how big was it? In the early stages of the collection growth no-one foresaw the present complexities in preservation, access and cataloguing, so much of the needed technical information was never recorded. It was not even possible to tell how many original tapes there were, let alone the size of the task which lay ahead. As the tape or the tape boxes were the only sources of the necessary data, two of the four data-entry computers were re- located inside the tape store and Kevin Bradley, the manager of Sound Preservation and Technical Services, lead the team in to start the stocktake.

[Justine Shelton & Kevin Bradley]

The now completed process has revealed that if the SPATS staff can keep up the pace of preservation duplication, and the cataloguers can continue at their rate, then the entirety of the collection, if it remains static in size, will be catalogued and copied to a digital format in 20 years. However, the collection does grow, in size and rate of change, every year. As that annual increase in the collection accounts for a large proportion of the preservation copying done, and is greater than the amount catalogued, it is almost certain that there will be transfer of digital material to the next digital format while the old analogue material is still being catalogued and transferred to the new technology. Fortunately, the same database that has allowed a calculation of the size of the problem is also a valuable tool in its management. It is now possible to identify high priority, high risk and high value material to ensure that the preservation work is most effective in maint-aining the life of, and access to, the collection.

LEFT: Cataloguer Justine Shelton and SPATS Manager, Kevin Bradley in the tape cold store.


January 1995 saw the start of data entry into the Sound Preservation database, even as its design was being completed. Justine Shelton joined the SPATS team at this time and managed the complex array of staff and technology for the next 11 months. Though no more than four staff were ever dedicated full time to the project, nearly 25 people were involved in the entry of data over its life. Team members from Oral History and the other specialist areas of Special Materials Cataloguing, Preservation Services and the stacks joined SPATS staff to spent at least four hours a week each on the project.

In teams of two, working in the cold of the tape store, staff inspected, checked, measured and sniffed 28 240 original tapes and, where they existed, their preservation and working duplicates. As there was time only for a visual inspection (to play the collection would have taken many years more), the information recorded reflects what could be seen. Those working on the project became adept at identifying acetate, PVC and polyester substrates, detecting acetic acid, moulds and dust, recognising obscure brands and calculating tape lengths. Due to the cold of the tape store, hats and gloves were supplied though some considered them unnecessary. The environmental conditions were carefully monitored and though each person generates around 2kW of heat each and gives off moisture, the airconditioning and dehumidifying equipment maintained conditions to within 1°C and 3%RH. Dust levels, however, did increase and the area had to be cleaned more regularly.

Along with the purely technical information, went data about the date of recording, the people on the tapes and the type of material. Also noted was the level of the catalogue record, the type of access conditions, if any, and the state of the transcript, where one exists. It is now possible to identify and coordinate cataloguing and preservation activities, to target undocumented access conditions (and, where possible, to rectify the lack). It is also possible to prioritise and preserve unstable materials and to plan the duplication of certain materials based on a knowledge of the size of the collection and the predicted lifespan of the carriers.

The sound preservation database program is modelled on Microsoft Access and was created by NLA systems staff, Annabel Heath and David La. It was the first produced by the area, and with more than 60 000 records now entered, is the largest of its type in the organisation. When the tools for interrogating the database are completed it will serve not only as a statistical device and a coordinating base for further work, but also as a reference point for access to the collections.

For the record: There are 28 240 tapes in the collection, with a length of 29 704 hours; 36.41% of the items are preserved; 31.82% of the items have a full catalogue record; 68.96% have some kind of specification of access conditions; yet only 13.8% have all three. And, to answer the first question last: 20 terabytes are needed to store the collection at its current size, with an anticipated growth rate of one terabyte every two years.

US Government Publications for Loan

The National Library of Australia has been a selective depository library for federal US government publications under the US Depository Library Program for a number of years. The United States Government Printing Office is now making these publications available on CD-ROM and floppy disks, and an increasing amount of United States government publications are becoming available in electronic formats.

When these materials are received in the National Library they are catalogued onto ABN so that libraries around Australia can identify where they are held. The Library is willing to make the titles available through interlibrary loan. Normal borrowing procedures and charges for interlibrary loans apply.

Please telephone (02) 6262 1629 or (02) 6262 1421.

What's New on the National Library's World Wide Web Site?
What was New in November 1995?

Papers by National Library staff

Other National Library Business and Information

Resources from other Australian Government Agencies and Departments

What was New in December 1995?

National Library of Australia Information

From the 2nd National Preservation Office Conference (Brisbane, November 1995)

Other Federal Government Information

Asia and Australia: Librarians Meet to Discuss Asian Collecting Agreements

An important step in forwarding the Distributed National Collection (DNC) was taken on 7 November when representatives of Australian libraries with major Asian collections met. The meeting was initiated after an approach to university libraries by Dr Neil Radford, Librarian, University of Sydney, who is a member of the Reference Group set up following the 3rd National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia held in February last year. Dr Radford, in coordination with Cliff Law, Director, DNC Office, was supporting the need expressed in the Roundtable resolutions AB1 and AB 2 'That ... Australian libraries with Asian materials ...indicate areas in which they are willing to discuss collecting and access agreements ... that the DNC Office encourage a network ... for Asian materials'.

Monash and LaTrobe Universities, the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne and the Australian National University were represented. Other attendees were the President of the Asian Studies Association and senior NLA staff, representing the Distributed National Collection Office, the National Preservation Office and Reader Services.

The meeting considered progress on the resolutions from the 3rd National Roundtable and then moved on to discuss what were the possible next steps.

It has been decided to concentrate initially upon the issues related to the collecting of Korean vernacular materials by holding a meeting of the major interested libraries in early 1996. Three other resolutions refer to the importance of improved bibliographical control, with Resolutions 2 and 3 encouraging the collection of more data on use and collections.

[Asia & Australia - DNC]



Left-Right

Cliff Law (DNC Office); Marie Sexton (National Library of Australia); Ross Coleman (University of Sydney); Dr. Beverley Hooper, President, Asian Studies Association of Australia; Michael Evans, Australian National University; Andrew Gosling, National Library of Australia; Eric Wainwright, National Library of Australia; Tony Arthur, University of Melbourne; Chooi-hon Ho, Monash University; Dr Jan Lyall, National Preservation Office; Magdalen Lee, University of Sydney; Pam Longley, La Trobe University; Pam Gatenby, National Library of Australia.



Copies of updated documentation and the latest information on the Asian Roundtables is available through the National Library's World Wide Web site. The address is: http://www.nla.gov.au/niac/meetings/asiart.html

Any queries should be sent to : Cliff Law, Director, DNC Office, (tel. 06 2621 503, E-mail: c.law@nla.gov.au, fax 61 6 257 1703) or

Marie Sexton, Principal Librarian, Asian Collections (tel. 06 262 1519, E-mail: msexton@nla.gov.au, fax 61 6 273 4327).

DNC Collecting Agreements

One of the functions of the DNC Office is to actively acquire and make available information on collecting agreements negotiated by Australian libraries. To achieve this objective, the office has established a register for print copies of agreements as well as recently establishing a site containing electronic copies of agreements.

URL http://www.nla.gov.au/niac/libs/collect.html

While the focus has been on the documentation that identifies the agreed relationship between libraries, the DNC Office will now also actively collect information about agreements 'in process', so that it can provide a richer picture of negotiations taking place.

Information will be located at the url indicated above. In addition, a self-reporting screen has been developed, making it easy to contribute and update information, as well as to see what negotiations are taking place.

For further information please contact Cliff Law, Director DNC Office, National Library of Australia, Tel.: +61 6 6262 1503, Fax: +61 6 6257 1703, E-mail:

Review of Overseas Newspaper Collecting

The National Library is at present reviewing its collection policy for overseas newspapers. Because there is little current published information on overseas newspaper collections in Australian libraries- which titles are permanently retained and available for loan-the National Library has been seeking information from Australian State and university libraries that collect overseas newspapers, to help it assess any implications for the Distributed National Collection.

The Library's collection policy for Australian newspapers is covered in the Collection Development Policy for Australian Materials, and the National Plan for Australian Newspapers (NPLAN). Newspapers from Asia and the Pacific Region will continue to be collected at a high level in accordance with the priority the library gives to its collecting from this region. The revised policy will therefore be applicable to newspapers from Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Central and the Middle East.

In the context of its revised collection development policy for overseas materials, the National Library is considering whether a newspaper collection of the world's best newspapers, carefully selected in consultation with its reference staff, would be sufficient to satisfy the 'public affairs', reference and research needs of the library, given that information services on Africa, Europe, North and South America and Central and the Middle East are not among its priority subject areas. These titles would be retained for reference and research purposes, and consideration may be given to procuring a small number of them by airfreight.

The selection criteria for these titles have not been fully determined, but are likely to reflect:

The current information needs of the library's users may also be supplemented by Internet resources. However, the library recognises that often this is not a substitute for hard copy subscriptions, as in many cases only selected parts of a newspaper are provided on-line. Several newspaper Web sites exist which contain media links to a number of on-line newspapers, broadcasters, magazines and news services. Should it prove feasible to mirror such sites, users seeking current information would have access to a wide variety of world news-papers and news services.

The National Library plans to announce its revised policy, complete with the titles it proposes to collect, and cancel, shortly. The policy will be posted on the relevant discussion lists, and published in National Library publications for comment by collection development librarians, libraries and other interested parties.

On-line Australian Publications

The National Library has established a Selection Committee on On-line Australian Publications (SCOAP). For many months there has been discussion regarding the selection, control and preservation of Australian publications on the Internet. In conjunction with other Australian libraries, the National Library acquires, controls and preserves the nation's printed documentary heritage and it recognises the need to ensure that electronic publications are also available to researchers in the future.

This poses a number of challenges. For instance, what does it mean to select or acquire a publication in the electronic environment? Is a title that is being continually updated a serial or a monograph? Are traditional cataloguing methods the best way to provide information about and locations for titles, or are there other ways more in keeping with the new technologies? There are copyright and access issues to address and decisions to be made about who should preserve titles and how it should be done.

These are some of the many issues relating to on-line publications which have been debated by the library's Collection Development and Management Committee during the past year. A subcommittee of CDMC attempted to draw up guidelines for the preservation of Australian on-line resources at a national level. It found, however, that staff expertise from a number of areas of the library would need to be pooled to deal with the format before there could be sufficient understanding to develop guidelines.

As a result, SCOAP has been set up with representatives from Acquisitions, Australian Collection Development Unit, Cataloguing, Information Services, Preservation and Systems. Its purpose is to bring together, from areas of the Library on which on-line publications will have an impact, key staff to select on-line Australian publications for national preservation. This will enable the build up of practical experience in dealing with on-line publications.

SCOAP anticipates that its activity will produce the following results:

Consideration of who should preserve a given item will mean negotiation with producers of publications or other collecting institutions. The library envisages that preservation activity will be shared more broadly than has been the case in the print environment.

It is intended that SCOAP will progressively eliminate the need for its existence by promoting the work arising from its recommendations into the operational areas of the library. As it will be a learning exercise for all concerned, it is expected that some early decisions may need to be revised in the light of later experience. Feedback from work areas will be encouraged.

For more information, please contact the convenor, Margaret Phillips, on 06 262 1140 or M.Phillips@nla.gov.au

Family History Clinics

Each Wednesday morning from 11 am to 12 noon Bill Tully invites National Library visitors and staff to bring their genealogical difficulties to the Newspaper Microcopy Reading Room. These informal sessions try and unravel such issues as:

Naturally only one item can be dealt with at a time, but the process of sleuthing can be amusing, cooperative and informative. Come along and sample a Tully Special.

Bill has worked at the Library since 1968 and is now the family history subject specialist in Information Services. His telephone number is 06 262 1423, and the E-mail address is ,a href="btully@nla.gov.au">b.tully@nla.gov.au.

This year's sessions begin on Wednesday 17 January.

Portrait of Adrian Lawlor

[Portrait of Adrian Lawlor]

The National Library has acquired a portrait of the Melbourne artist and writer Adrian Lawlor, painted in 1964 by his good friend Lina Bryans.

This portrait was shown recently at the Ian Potter Gallery in the University of Melbourne Museum of Art, as part of an exhibition devoted to the portraits of Lina Bryans, entitled 'The Babe Is Wise'. Lawlor (1889-1969) is painted in the style of the Fauve artists, with hectic colours such as red and yellow reflecting both the mood and personality of the sitter.

A fervent lover of music, Lawlor is said to have been listening to the Beethoven quartets while the portrait was painted. He considered these works to be the ultimate measure of creativity.

LEFT: Lina Bryans, 1909- ; Portrait of Adrian Lawlor, 1964 (oil on canvas; 100 x 79.9 cm)


Lina Bryans was very pleased with this portrait, feeling that it captured the essential Lawlor, and she entered it in the 1964 Archibald Prize competition. However, that year no prize was awarded.

The library holds other works by Lina Bryans. Her portraits of Jean Campbell and Nettie Palmer are at present on display in the exhibition 'In the Picture' at the National Portrait Gallery, Old Parliament House, and portraits of Helen Palmer-the daughter of Vance and Nettie-and of the zoologist, writer and explorer Jock Marshall have been added recently to the Pictorial Collection.

'A Leader in Fashion and Portrait Photography'

(Sydney Morning Herald obituary notice 22 October 1990).

Athol Shmith, born 19 August 1914, was to become Melbourne's leading studio photographer. In 1939 he opened his studio at the fashionable end of Collins Street and for more than 40 years was the leading portrait and fashion photographer of the city.

An early interest in music-he wanted to become a conductor-soon turned to photography. His father gave him a studio camera when he was 14, and in 1932 Athol Shmith produced his first studio photograph which he submitted to the Colonial Overseas Exhibition in London. He photographed many visiting celebrities, including Arthur Koestler, Julian Huxley, H.G. Wells and Sir Malcolm Sargent, and in 1948, when a group of haute couture models arrived from France, he photographed them modelling the first 'New Look' fashion. He had been chosen as the publicity photographer for J.C. Williamson in the 1930s and his portraits of theatrical personalities and film stars include Gregory Peck, Sir Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Sir Robert Helpmann.

In the 1960s with the increasing interest in art photography, courses in photography started at tertiary institutions. Athol Shmith began teaching at the Prahran College of Technology, introducing the first course in creative photography there, and in 1972 became head of the Photography Department.

He was a member of the advisory committee at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968 which investigated the setting up of the first department of photography, and in 1973 was given the commission to acquire the works of international photographers for the gallery.

[Vivien Leigh / AS]

RIGHT: Athol Smith, 1914-1990. Vivien Leigh. Athol Shmith Collection.

His work has been shown at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (1977) and in 1990, just before he died, the Art Gallery of New South Wales held a retrospective exhibition.

Although a studio photographer, he often photographed his models against interesting backgrounds such as old buildings, fruit and vegetable markets, and warehouses-long before it became the vogue.

In 1948 he invented, along with Bertram Pearl, the Photo-finish process, which enabled a more accurate recording of the winners of horse races.

He died on 21 October 1990.

The Athol Shmith Collection in the National Library.

The Athol Shmith Collection comprises approximately 400 photographs, mostly in black and white, and 195 colour transparencies. The photographs cover the three broad categories of fashion, portraiture and images for advertising purposes. The photographs date from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The fashion photographs include the glamorous period of Australian dressing with prints showing women wearing exquisite ball gowns and luxurious fur coats. There are photographs of models' faces and models in the nude from his 1971 series called Anamorphics. In addition, the 1970s 'new look'-short dresses on tall, slim women-are represented.

The portraits are mainly of beautiful women, for example, Margaret Hebble and Maggie Tabberer, and visiting celebrities Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor. In the collection there are portraits of Australian perform-ers such as Googie Withers. High society is also represented, with studies of Sir Rohan Delacombe and Dame Zara and Harold Holt in their heyday.

There are many photographs for advertisements but only two are actually printed with the product name. One of these advertise-ments was for Dew Cologne Deodorant, a picture that was published with his obituary notice.

The collection can be viewed in the Pictorial Reading Room and copies are available for purchase.

WORLD 1 to Host Medline Database

The National Library of Australia has announced that Medline, one of the world's largest medical databases, will be hosted on the new WORLD 1 on-line information service from early 1997.

The announcement was made by the National Library's on-line services marketing manager, Rob Walls, at the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Regulatory and Clinical Scientists to the Pharmaceutical Industry (ARCS) in Sydney.

WORLD 1 will host the highest demand segments of the United States National Library of Medicine's (NLM) flagship database, Medline, from early 1997.

The Medline Database is a valuable acquisition for WORLD 1 which, as a one-stop-shop, will offer libraries and individuals advanced search, document requesting and collection management services.

The Medline database contains more than six million references to health and medical articles published since 1966 and is updated weekly. WORLD 1 will host the most recent four years of this extensive database.

Mr Walls said more than 300 Australian medical practitioners, pharmacists and medical libraries have already acquired passwords from the National Library of Australia to search databases at the National Library of Medicine in the US.

Demand is expected to grow when Medline is hosted on WORLD 1 as people seeking up-to-date information on health, medical and pharmaceutical subjects will experience a range of benefits from improved response times to a choice in document delivery methods.

Mr Walls said converting Medline from a gateway service to a hosted service will provide the best possible response time, far better than currently experienced across the Internet from NLM in the USA. Also, citations will be linked to serials locations on WORLD 1, thereby providing a choice for cost and speed of document delivery. When a useful article is found on Medline, customers will be able to order the document through the NLM's Docline service in the United States, or through UnCover, or the Australian interlibrary loan system.

In addition, the Medline data relating to Australia will be merged on WORLD 1 with the Australasian Medical Index (AMI), Australia's own premier medical database, to provide a comprehensive index to Australian medical information.

WORLD 1 will also provide access through transparent electronic gateways to other NLM databases, including those parts of Medline not hosted on WORLD 1. The transparent gateway service, available in 1997, will use the international Z39.50 protocol which allows one search system to query and retrieve data from databases located on other search systems.

WORLD 1 customers will be able to search this entire medical resource using the same easy-to- use interface utilised for all WORLD 1 databases. To meet the needs of the widest range of customers, access to WORLD 1 will be via the WORLD 1 client graphical user interface (GUI) or through a web browser, such as Netscape or Mosaic.

Conser Policy Meeting 1995

The National Library was represented at the annual Conser Policy Meeting, held at the Library of Congress on 2-3 November 1995, by Jasmine Cameron, Senior Manager, Technical Services Section. The Library has been associated with Conser in an advisory capacity since 1978 when the it was invited to join what was then the Conser Advisory Committee. The National Library now has the status of Conser Councillor alongside the British Library, ISSN International Centre, Research Libraries Group and the Program for Cooperative Cataloguing. The main role of the Conser Councillors is to serve as channels for the exchange of information about serials issues between their organisations and Conser.

The 1995 Conser Policy Meeting had two themes. Day 1 was devoted to discussing matters of governance and membership and the morning of Day 2 was spent discussing a range of issues concerning the control of on-line serials.

Key resolutions on Day 1 included the creation of a new category of Conser membership called 'enhance' and expansion of the associate membership category to allow contributions to the Conser database from consortia or project groups on an on-going rather than a finite basis. The enhance category will enable authenticated Conser records to be enhanced by non-member libraries who will contribute specific categories of data such as specialised subject headings or classification numbers. CICnet is the first project to join Conser under the expanded associate membership category. CICnet's participation will ensure a good coverage of records for on-line serials.

On Day 2 of the Conser meeting 10 recommendations from the Conser Task Force on Electronic Resources were discussed. Some recommendations were basically a reaffirmation of Conser's role and were agreed without much discussion while other recommendations attracted wide ranging discussion and debate. Key recommendations debated during the morning included:

Recommendation 3: Conser should consider whether it has a role to play in cooperative access to electronic serials

This recommendation was debated in terms of Conser possibly undertaking a role in the preservation or archiving of on-line serials. It was agreed that a move in this direction was outside Conser's current brief. It was noted that Conser has not undertaken a role in co-operative access to serials in other formats. The Policy Committee agreed that Conser does not have a role to play in cooperative access to electronic serials.

Recommendation 5: Conser should work with the national and international serials, information and cataloguing communities to resolve the question of what constitutes a serial in the digital environment

It was argued by some members that Conser should not try to define what constitutes a serial in the digital environment but rather that Conser should set the rules and standards for cataloguing on-line serials and that libraries should decide for themselves which on-line resources to catalogue as serials.

The debate moved through several stages including a discussion of the paper by Crystal Graham and Becky Ringler from the University of California at San Diego. This paper proposes the creation of a third category of materials in addition to monographs and serials.

There was general agreement that Conser members should work towards defining what constitutes a serial in the digital environment but that this cannot be done in isolation from other stakeholders such as monograph cataloguers. Jean Hirons, Conser Coordinator, was asked to discuss a way forward through this issue with Barbara Tillet who has responsibility for cataloguing policy at the Library of Congress.

Recommendation 6: Conser should work with the above communities on the question of what constitutes a reproduction versus an edition in the digital environments, particularly an approach that will allow the original and the repro-duction to be described on one record

Conser members felt that they needed more time to discuss this with cataloguers in their own institutions. There was, however, a strong preference expressed for a solution which involved a one record approach and a strong desire to avoid 'another multiple versions decision'.

Recommendation 9: Conser should continue including on one record all the file formats in which a remote access serial is issued...Conser should also work with LC and CC:DA to see this practice is documented in AACR2

Jean Hirons noted that Conser has received strong international support for this decision.

New Publication

[Book Cover]

The TF2001 Working Group on High Priority Cross Sectoral Projects is pleased to announce the publication of Indexes in Australian Libraries: A Towards Federation 2001 Survey, by Margaret Henty and Rachael Jakimow. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1995.
ISBN 0 642 10657 6.

At last there is a comprehensive listing of indexes in Australian libraries-a boon for researchers from fields as diverse as art and family history, politics and the study of apple and pear labels.

This index of indexes is the culmination of years of research initiated by the Towards Federation 2001 project, the first real attempt in Australian library history to gain a clear, overall picture of the state of indexes in Australian libraries-with its charter to focus only on indexes which record Australia's heritage.


This first edition provides holdings for indexes held in the Australian National, State, Territory and parliamentary libraries. As well as proving an excellent resource, Indexes in Australian Libraries will help ensure that library indexing is rationalised effectively, to provide better national access. It also has the potential to reduce operating costs by alerting libraries to possible indexing duplications.

Indexes in Australian Libraries gives full details for each entry, including the name of the library producing the index, a general description, whether it is ongoing or closed, its size and geographic focus, and information on electronic access. It has its has its own comprehensive cross-referenced index.

Indexes in Australian Libraries costs $A15.00. Copies are available from:

Sales and Distribution
National Library of Australia
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Tel.: 008 800 100 or (02) 62621646
Fax.: 61 6 273 1084

'An Australian in Bali' A National Library of Australia travelling exhibition

['The Owl]

LEFT: 'On awakening I felt light & free & careless, as tho' at last I had thrown off that skin which so long chafed me in Australia' artist Donald Friend wrote about Bali in 1966. He decided to settle there and for the next 13 years Bali was his home.

This exhibition 'An Australian in Bali', specifically developed for library visitors, is very easy to install in foyers and corridors. It has colour photographic reproductions of selections from Donald Friend's diaries, and illustrated manuscripts and rare photographs from the artist's own collection. A video from a film about Friend in Bali-

Tamu, the Guest-made in 1971 and directed by Jane Oehr, is included in the exhibition package.





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Last updated 27 May 1997
Link(s) modified 15 September 1999